Busman’s Honeymoon

I’m about halfway through this, the fourth book about Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane, and enjoying it for the most part. One long scene, however, reminded me of my prelim paper on narrative psychology. One of the ways to be drawn out of transportation (aka immersion, or absorption, or enchantment) in a work is when you become aware of it as an “artifact,” and in this scene, it was all too obvious that the story had originally been written as a play. There were a few pages where it almost seemed that Sayers had gotten lazy and just sat there reformatting the play’s dialogue and stage directions. Fortunately, most of the book is not so blatant about it.

Very nice weather – with the sunshine, warm enough for reading outside, though only 68°, and the grass has recovered from its summer coarseness to feel fresh and soft against my bare feet.